Taking a deep, deep breath, I walked to the front of the room. In my mind I was “talking myself through” the how-to’s of being in the moment.

Yeah. Instead of actually being in the moment.

That’s how I roll.

It was approaching 9pm. I wanted to be mindful and respectful of the time of the other participants, and I also had been telling myself to be honest throughout this experience.

“Say the first thing that comes to mind. Don’t prejudge. Trust that God knows what you need.”

I continued taking deep breaths, uncertain of the question the facilitator would pose. Knowing my coach the way I thought I did, I knew she would be led intuitively to ask the question that would best serve my learning, but also had no real idea what it would be.

“I’m going to be a vessel, and really fully participate in my own growth” I was thinking to my self. “I am open. I’m willing.”

Add my coach asked one of the hardest questions I’ve ever been asked:
“What one thing do you want us to know about yourself that would most help you in your growth this weekend?”

I’m paraphrasing, because I’m still a little bleary-eyed. It’s after midnight as I write this, and I want to make sure I capture as much of it as possible, because there’s much learning to be had, and the specific words are already slipping from my memory.

But I do remember what I said in reply. I remember it so clearly because it was off my lips faster than I could reel myself back in. Faster than I could retract the sentiment, I uttered the following words:

“I’m full of fear. It pervades everything I’m about in the world. I’ve gotten good at acting and wearing a facade. People look at me and think I’m so strong or so competent. I just see me doing what I must do in the face of a lot of fear.”

As I continued to reflect on the question, and the further probing of my coach, I recognized that I had created survival mechanisms from a very young age that gave me the ability to appear strong when others around me were obviously not. I further recognized that I wasn’t doing it because I felt I had to “be strong” for others (like when my Mom died, for example), but because I was afraid to face my own fears. It became easier to pretend I was “fine” and “strong” instead of embracing the fact that I was hurting and longing for comfort myself. Because I legitimately knew I couldn’t get the comfort I was longing for at the time, why bother going through the hassle of asking for help that wouldn’t arrive, right?

Um, wrong.

You don’t know where help can come from. I like to say that God made us to be interdependent beings – not dependent, co-dependent, or totally independent. We need each other. Not all the time, but when we need each other, we need each other. We are not designed to do everything ourselves. And trying to will only destroy us. We are designed to ask for and receive help in copious amounts.

And like my mom said “If you don’t ask, the answer’s always ‘no’.”

We dug deep into my issues around fear and appearing brave. Since my theme for the year is being brave, I have to honestly face my fears. I’ve shared some of them before. And I’m sure it goes without saying that I get scared from time to time. We all do.

So why was it so difficult for me to openly demonstrate that I have fear?

There is a difference, you know. It’s easy to be cerebral about fear: to talk about being afraid in a moment where you’re not actually feeling the fear. You can intellectualize the concept of fear and make it a clinical thing.

But to actually be afraid? To feel the fear in the moment of it happening?

I think it’s safe to say most of us would take a pass if we can?

Two of my survival mechanisms feed this fear issue: my addiction to learning and the hyper-awareness I’ve developed about people. I don’t remember everything about people and situations, but I do remember a lot of things – especially if I think it will make me appear more valuable in a future conversation.

I used to jokingly call it “celebrity syndrome” – where I might forget your name two minutes after meeting you if I thought I’d never meet you again, but if I knew we’d probably cross paths again, I’d be trying to learn details about you that I could bring up again at our next encounter.

Please understand, I ask a lot of questions because I’m curious. I really DO like learning about people. It’s not JUST a survival mechanism, or a sales technique. It’s part of how I learn about people that interest me.

At the same time, I’ve learned a lot of usesless crap over the years to try and please someone I might never meet again on the off hand chance that we MIGHT meet again and it would ingratiate me to them.

Talk about a LOT of wasted energy! And all because I’m living in an old “survival” thought pattern that said I have to constantly prove my worth for fear of losing love, respect, attention, etc.

Talk about even MORE wasted energy!

Today I made a commitment to my coach to be willing to show my afraid self. And if I’m going to make any kind of commitment, I want to make a full on commitment – including to you.

My promise is this: to not just feel the fear and do it anyway, but to feel the fear and accept it. To allow fear, acknowledge it, and choose to transcend it. I also pledge to be willing to ask for help – and receive it gratefully.

Ultimately, I want to go from “being willing” to “knowing”. Being willing is a matter of faith. Knowing takes practice.

My friend says faith stands for “Fully Allowing Intentions To Happen” – and I’ve said before that faith is the antidote to fear. So I’m standing fully in my fear today, with the FAITH that I will eventually transcend it, and acknowledging that I can not do it alone.

I am allowing fear. I am fully allowing myself to feel it. I’m allowing it to exist within me, and acknowledging it as part of who I am in this moment. And I’m allowing myself to transform it, instead of allowing it to transform me.

We have to allow

Last year, my word was “ENTHUSIASM” (yes, I decided on all caps about half way through the year) – the idea being to infuse more spirit into everything I was doing. My theme song was Matthew West’s “The Motions”. I would lip synch and sing and conjure my own “rock videos” in my living room – like I was going to be on american idol or something. It was funny, but it was also a very honest reflection of the kind of enthusiasm I really wanted to imbue in every action, every effort, every everything in 2011.

This year, after a daunting 2011 (hey, I asked for it!), I figured I needed to power up a bit, and picked “brave” as my word o’ the year. I also selected Nichole Nordeman’s song by the same name (some of the lyrics are in the boxes below).

“The gate is wide, the road is paved in moderation.

The crowd is kind and quick to pull you in.”

There were a lot of obstacles in 2011 – many of which I created for myself when I stopped trusting my gut and started listening to the cacophonous noise around me.  I learned a lot about what not to do – the hard way, I might add. By the middle of the year, I was poised to dissolve a division of my business. Originally, I had big hopes for it. But it got more unwieldy, and difficult to navigate. Frankly, it hurt, and created anxiety every time I thought about it.

“Welcome to the middle ground. It’s safe and sound.

And until now, it’s where I’ve been. “

I trusted people that I thought knew better than me. I invested a lot of time, energy and money into creating what someone else told me I should do (this happened repeatedly – silly me). Instead of focusing on where my heart was leading, I was busy building a company (and a life) that couldn’t stand on it’s own. And then it started to crumble.

“‘Cause it’s been fear that’s tied me down to everything.

But it’s been love – your love – that cuts the strings.”

One night in early June, I remember laying awake, crying – that hard, fearful, body shuddering sobbing that should keep any decent husband awake. I was gripped in complete and total fear about something in my business that was going horribly awry. And no amount of asking for help was going to fix it. All my husband could think to do was pat me on my shoulder in an effort to comfort me.

And in that moment, I saw the tortuous choice in before me: let the business crash and burn completely, or cut off the dead parts and rehabilitate what was left according to my own inner wisdom.

“So long, Status Quo! I think I’ll just let go. You make me wanna be Brave.

The way it always was is no longer good enough. You make me wanna be Brave.”

Calm washed over me and the husband went back to snoring. A good sign. I realized that things may not be the way I wanted them to be, but that was actually going to be the best thing possible for me. By “starting over” I had a clean slate, and the ability to clear the decks and do things right – the way my heart was calling me to do it.

I realized that, for me, doing things the way they’ve always been done doesn’t always make sense. That’s not my mold, not my paradigm. It cost me tens of thousands of dollars, and precious lost time to figure that out. In the end, I regained my personal sense of invincibility – or at least I started to.

It’s like the old painting in the attic. It’s still a masterpiece, but it needs to be cleaned up again.

“I am small, and I speak when I’m spoken to. Yet I am willing to risk it all.”

And I spent the second half of the year, cleaning up the masterpiece. In the process, I rediscovered what matters most to me: connecting with brilliantly gifted people, sharing stories, entertaining, informing, and inspiring others to do big things in the world.

It was arduous, and at times, I wasn’t sure I was doing things “right”. Then, almost magically, things started happening. People came from out of nowhere, and wheels were set in motion for this new adventure. Crazy new ideas, scary and thrilling all at the same time, are taking shape now, where once I thought there was nothing to salvage.

“I’m ready to jump – even ready to fall.

Why did I take this vow of compromise? Why did I try to keep it all inside?”

My vision for 2012 is about being brave – and that means being brave enough to know and accept boundaries. Brave doesn’t mean stupid. It means speaking up when the Emperor is unclothed. It means doing what’s right for me, even if other people are shaking their heads. It means putting up a pay wall so I can work more closely with the people that love me (and who I love right back!). It means less grasping for straws, or throwing spaghetti, and more honing my craft and enjoying my life.

It means more focus on Spirit, and a holistic approach to building my business and my life – and inspiring you to do the same, if you’re willing. Bridging that connection – between the spiritual and the practical of life and business – is where I’ve felt drawn for years, but I couldn’t confidently form the words to say what I believe needs to be said. Now, having come through the last year with all my parts and pieces intact, I’m ready to “jump – even ready to fall” into this “spiritreneurial” space (hat tip to Laurie Beth Jones for the word).

Will you join me?

“Um, let’s see if you can figure out how to work the scooter you got for Christmas first, honey.”

Seems logical, right? But in the moment of watching his mini-tirade about wanting to “go fast” and “sit up high” I was reminded of my own tirades against “paying my dues” in the various professions and industries I’ve served over the years.

With few exceptions (my husband being one of them – isn’t it funny how God seems to know just what He’s doing in moments like that?), people don’t like slow.

We love the results of slow – slow roasted barbecue, fine wine, beautiful artwork – but we don’t like the waiting around for it to become a masterpiece.

We just want the masterpiece right now, thankyouverymuch.

As I stood watching my son, I saw my thirty-something self reflected back. How I wanted to “have, do, be” things at breakneck speed so I could “arrive” at some destination that I thought was a foregone conclusion already.

In a flash, I thought about daVinci, and how he studied for years before he was seen as a true master of his craft. Then my brain flashes to the 10,000 hours concept from Malcom Gladwell. And it occurs to me that slow may suck, but it’s an important step in marinating the creative juices.

And even when I appear to be going fast to the onlooker, it feels painfully slow to me.

The learning, unlearning, and do-overs. The late nights of fixing something I thought was ready for public consumption.

I. Hate. Slow.

But there’s a beautiful power in slow, too.

Slow-Twitch Power

When I was working with a personal trainer back in the day, the one exercise I hated was designed to focus on my shoulders. My shoulders were so weak, I couldn’t lift a 5 pound dumbell up to shoulder height with my arm fully extended without complaining. After about three lifts, my shoulders were searing. I was calling him all kinds of names by the fifth lift. My form would start slipping, and I would go as fast as I could just to get the damn reps over with.

Finally, my personal Marquis de Sade would “congratulate” me for completing the reps. ”Just keep practicing.” he would say. “It gets easier as you keep lifting. Then, we’ll up the weight, and do this all over again.”

So when he wasn’t around, I would practice – without weights, flapping my arms like a bird – but in very slow motion. It’s easy to hold something out to your sides for a second or two, but try holding nothing for a minute. It’ll hurt like hell if you’ve never practiced it.

I started reading up on weight training, so I didn’t sound like a dolt whenI was working out. Apparently we have muscles designed for slow and fast movements (something my “trainer” never told me – which is why I fired him). Slow-twitch muscles are where your stamina is built. Slow-twitch is where your endurance is.

Slow-twitch is about power. Fast-twitch is about explosive movement.

Fast-twitch gets you running from the bear. Slow twitch keeps you running.

Fast-twitch muscles fatigue rapidly.

When I read that, I thought about the tortoise and the hare, and how the hare took a nap after sprinting away from the starting line.

Insert evil grin here.

So as I practiced very slowly, with virtually no weight, it became easier to lift my arms to shoulder height for ten or twelve repetitions.

Then, of course, my “trainer” wanted to add more weight, because to him, it looked like the workout was getting too easy.

And I guess, in a way, it was. I had learned the power of slow, and just like that tortoise, I could win the race if I stayed at it.

Slow and Steady

Flash back to my son, who is now done with his mini-tirade, and working on getting his balance on the scooter. He’s spending a lot more time pumping with his foot than I would, but I can’t do this for him. He’s spending maybe two seconds coasting, and 37 seconds with one foot on the ground, trying to create enough speed to coast in the first place.

And he’s loving it. Sure, he’d still rather be on the motorcycle, “up high” and “going fast”, but he has a clear goal to master. Pretty soon, he’s got both feet on the deck of the scooter, and he’s coasting around like a pro. Well, as much as a five year old can be a professional scooter-er.

Again, I’m reminded of my own struggle. Guys like Les McKeown talk about how it typically takes upwards of 3 years for a start-up to get out of what he calls “early struggle” - to get profitable and stay there – because they’re learning the mechanics of doing business in their industry. Sure, many companies get there sooner, and many take much longer (or never get there), but the average seems to be about 3 years, according to Les.

No one wants it to take three (or more) years, but if we normalized that, perhaps we wouldn’t be so cavalier about mortgaging our homes and maxing our credit cards to launch our businesses.

Lately, my path has crossed, Godly enough, with various articles on the topic of taking things slowly. Kelly Kingman offers a great post about slow blogging in conjunction with her latest project with Pace Smith for peaceful entrepreneurs. Mitch Joel writes at length about how we have misinterpreted the habits of successful people as sacrifices we have to make in order to see success. The reality, says Joel, is that they’ve been honing their craft for years, have a natural proclivity for it, and thus, it appears much more effortless for them. He says those folks consider their work part of their habits – who they are - and not so much a sacrifice they had to make in order to become the successful people they are today.

What are you practicing?

So what about you? What comes naturally to you? What comes naturally because you’ve been practicing it for years? This includes not only the stuff you enjoy, but perhaps the stuff you “had to get good at” in order to do your work effectively. Can you see how those hours of “practice” have led you to where you are today.

This includes the mindset stuff you’ve been “practicing” for years. When I work with clients on raising their threshold of belief, we have to get a clear baseline. We have to know what they already believe in their core before we can start moving them toward a new goal, because a new goal often requires a shift in thinking, otherwise, you’d be there by now.

Practice makes habit, and if you’ve been practicing “being broke” for fifteen years, it’s going to take more than a day or two of positive thinking to shift that habit. You’re going to need to take teeny tiny steps away from “being broke” to build the slow-twitch “muscle” of having plenty. It’s why affirmations don’t work for many many people – myself included. If I can’t see the truth in the statement, it doesn’t pass my BS filter (or if it does, there’s so much self-talk thwarting it, that it won’t do much good)!

Instead, we have to look at what we do believe to be true, and “flex” that muscle slowly, to build our stamina, and our power in a way that builds us up and gives us the power to keep adding more weight to the stack – until that “thing” we’ve been working on becomes effortless.

This year, I’ve made a commitment to eliminate white flour from my diet for the next 90 days. It’s not easy, but it’s a LOT easier for me than giving up dairy, white flour, sugar, and “all the other stuff I love” all at one time in an effort to “eat healthier” in the new year. One thing. Slow and steady. And we’ll see what happens.

What one thing  - something doable, believable, achievable (even a little bit easy at first) – can you do today to help you move closer to where you want to be?